Random Features Science Says You Are Attracted To Without Even Knowing (14 items)

• 

  (#1) A Resemblance To Your Parents Is A Turn On

  To some degree, your whole concept of attractiveness is based on formative experiences from your infancy. One British study found that the age of a person's parents determined their level of attraction to various age-based facial characteristics. Women who were born when their parents were older (over 30) were less impressed by youthful features than women with younger parents, and, indeed, the women born to the older set tended to prefer older male faces. Similarly, men's preferences were influenced by their mothers' ages. Another study found that, regardless of whether or not we mean to - or even realize it - we wind up with partners who have features in common with our parents; in fact, the strongest predictor of your spouse's eye color is the eye color of your opposite-sex parent.
• 

  (#2) Cues That Someone Eats A Healthy Diet Are Highly Attractive

  This one isn't about having an athletic body shape; although that sort of thing is obviously attractive (you probably don't need a study to tell you that muscular men have more sex, but here's one for you anyway). Rather, this is about how we can subconsciously determine the healthiness of someone's diet from his or her skin. One study found that a diet high in carotenoids from fruit and vegetable sources resulted in a complexion that was rated as healthier and more attractive. Counterintuitively, another study even found that consumption of garlic, which has numerous health benefits, made a person's body odor smell more pleasing to sexual partners in the long run.
• 

  (#3) The Smell Of An Immune System That's Different From Your Own Gets You Hot And Bothered

  It might sound crazy, but each person's immune system is totally unique and has the capability to assess the similarities and differences it has to the immune systems of those around it. The "major histocompatibility complex" (MHC) is the thing your immune system uses to distinguish its own cells from other cells. Everyone's is unique. Studies have found that humans are attracted to people whose MHC is most unlike their own - or, at least, they prefer how they smell. One study had male students sleep in t-shirts for two nights and then asked female students to rate the shirts' scents; the women most preferred the smell of men who had the most dissimilar MHCs. A separate study reached the same conclusions in reverse - men preferred the scent of women who had immune systems unlike their own.
• 

  (#4) Slow Movements Create A Whole Unspoken Language Of Attraction

  Static images don't tell the whole story when it comes to attractiveness; we actually glean a great deal of information from how a person moves (e.g. men prefer the gait of women who are ovulating). One less obvious example is that women tend to make a lot of small, slow movements when they're interacting with a man they like, and men, in turn, tend to find this attractive without necessarily noticing it. Another study found that men tended to be more attracted to women who made slower and less-complex body motions. Related research has determined that slow movements and slow speech are generally more effective at winning over people who are still somewhat cautious around you - for example, on a first date.
• 

  (#5) Men With Wide Faces Come Across As More Sexually Fit

  Several traits are associated with facial width; for example, men with wider faces have higher levels of testosterone than average (and also, as a corollary, higher levels of aggressiveness). A higher facial width-to-height ratio ("fWHR ") is seen as more dominant and powerful. Women also consider these men more attractive - at least, as short-term romantic partners, not necessarily as long-term marriage prospects. A speed-dating study found that women expressed more interest in men with a high fWHR and were more likely to want a second date with them. (This is a distinction the researchers noted; the women didn't just find these men more attractive; they were actually willing to pursue real-world interactions with them, as opposed to just rating their appearances in an experimental setting.)
• 

  (#6) Averageness Is An Aphrodisiac

  Descriptions of beauty always focus on someone's outstanding features: her big, soulful eyes or his chiseled jaw. Nobody ever writes an attractive character by saying "Well, to be honest, most of her was pretty unremarkable." But all of a person's ordinary features, the ones that don't really stand out, are actually pretty important. Several studies have demonstrated that, the less a person's features differ from the norm in a given population, the more attractive his or her face is. One study found that averaging together random faces into a composite image resulted in a more attractive face than any of the individual source faces. 
• 

  (#7) Immune System Strength Is A Turn On

  Given that human immune systems have the ability to distinguish between their own cells and the cells of another person, it shouldn't come as a surprise that one of the unseen forces of attraction is the health of someone's immune system. British researchers tested the immune systems of male subjects by measuring their antibody responses to a vaccine for Hepatitis B. They then showed photographs of the men's faces to 94 female study participants, who went on to rate the men with the strongest immune systems as more attractive than their peers. (The men rated as most attractive also had higher testosterone levels and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.) Incidentally, this seems like it may be a one-way correlation; a similar study by the same researchers found that men also preferred the faces of women with low cortisol, but their immune systems weren't significant to facial attractiveness ratings.
• 

  (#8) Men Love A Long-Armed Woman

  A study in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology found that some aspects of attractiveness were to be expected, and they persisted across different cultures. When asked to rate images of various women for attractiveness, a group of Australian participants pretty much agreed with a group of Hong Kong participants in their ratings; both groups prioritized things that indicate youth and health. Both groups preferred taller women with a low BMI and a high hip-to-waist ratio. Surprisingly, though, both groups also indicated a preference for women with longer arms; leg size had no effect on their ratings.
• 

  (#9) A Rested Face Is A More Appealing Face

  It's probably not surprising that you find it unattractive when someone has a terrible night and looks like a ghoul in the morning, but being rested is more attractive even when the effect is hardly noticeable. A Swedish study found that we notice a lot of minor facial cues in people who have underslept, considering them less healthy and less attractive than well-rested people. (The authors point out that observers only saw photographs of the participants for six seconds, so the total effect of sleeplessness on your attractiveness in real life would probably be even more significant.) Even a few hours of sleep deprivation will produce noticeable facial changes (paler skin, dark undereye circles, and down-turned mouths). The effect is cumulative over a lifetime, too; consistent sleep deprivation ages your skin and interferes with its ability to recover from sun damage.
• 

  (#10) Shared Speech And Grammar Are Sexy

  According to a Texas Tech study, people who speak in a similar way, using the same function words, are more likely to be attracted to each other. Function words - as opposed to content words - are the words that signify grammatical relationships or just fill pauses ("a," "the," "he," "she," "okay"). Researchers monitored subjects who were meeting in a speed-dating setting, and they found that people who had higher similarity in their use of function words were more likely to go on a second date together. They were even likely to still be together three months later. The strength of the effect was significant; people with similar speech were three times more likely to express interest in each other than people with dissimilar speech.
• 

  (#11) The Larger The Limbal Rings, The Better

  Limbal rings are one of those features that you look directly at every day but probably don't think about. These are the dark circular lines that surround the iris; they increase the contrast between the iris and the sclera and generally make your eyes stand out more. You also, probably unconsciously, associate them with youth; limbal rings appear largest in children and grow less pronounced with age. Studies have demonstrated that they aren't only something we take note of and consider attractive; they're also something that we notice almost instantaneously. Even when presented with two images of the same exact face, with only the limbal rings adjusted, people will rate the face with more noticeable limbal rings as more attractive.
• 

  (#12) The Smell Of Hormones In Sweat Really Revs Human Engines

  Scientists have yet to find evidence for functioning human pheromones. We don't appear to have anything that works the same way as, for example, the attractants of the luna moth (who can detect one molecule of sex pheromone from six miles away). However, one Berkeley study found that women who sniffed a bottle containing androstadienone - a derivative of testosterone - reported an improved mood and heightened sexual arousal compared to control subjects. They also demonstrated physiological signs of increased arousal (higher heart rate, faster breathing). Another study that asked female participants to smell t-shirts worn by various men found that the women preferred the scent of men with higher testosterone but only when the women were ovulating.
• 

  (#13) Humans Love Seeing Personality Traits In Potential Mates' Faces

  You're probably aware of what personality traits you like, but you might not realize that you're also attracted to the physical features you associate with those traits. British researchers showed pictures of male and female faces to participants who had also answered a questionnaire about the traits they wanted in a partner. Then, they made composite images that represented attraction to a trait - for example, if all of the men who liked assertiveness tended to all like a few faces, those faces were merged into a composite face that represented assertiveness. The same was done in reverse (e.g. with the faces that didn't interest people who liked assertiveness). The researchers ended up with a whole series of faces representing 10 traits and their opposites (a Relaxed face, a Not Relaxed face, et cetera), and other participants could mostly guess which trait these resulting faces were supposed to represent. In short, when you find someone attractive, you're not just deciding that he or she is beautiful and that's the end of it. You're ascribing some trait to the person's features - warmth, or assertiveness, or maturity - and that's influencing your assessment.
• 

  (#14) Facial Symmetry Is Irresistible

  On one hand: duh, of course facial symmetry is attractive. Nobody is clamoring for a romantic partner who looks like he was painted by a Cubist. But the interesting point here is that facial symmetry is attractive even when you can't fully see it. Studies that only rely on images of half-faces still find that the more symmetrical faces are rated as more attractive, even when there are no visible cues as to to the entire face's overall symmetry. Furthermore, women seem more perceptive of facial symmetry than men. (Both sexes prefer it, but it influenced female study participants' ratings more than men's).

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking